Channel 4 emerged as Scotland’s preferred broadcast for political coverage with a net +23 rating among respondents, higher than STV (+19) and BBC Scotland last on +16 overall.

Stuart Campbell, who runs the website, said: “The BBC was the only one which had a notable difference in perception between Yes and No voters. C4 got +25 from Nos and a very similar +21 from Yessers, STV was closer still at +20 and +19, but the BBC had a sizeable gap, just +6 from independence supporters (which is still startlingly high), but a thumping +23 from unionists.

“All broadcasters in Scotland are required by Ofcom rules to be neutral and balanced. We suppose that two out of three more or less managing it isn’t bad. It’s interesting that the papers with the biggest positive scores are also the ones with by far the lowest sales – The Guardian shifts just 8000 or so copies in Scotland, and the Scotsman barely sells more.

“The four with the lowest ratings, meanwhile, are the four best-selling titles of those we surveyed. Go figure.”

In terms of perceived bias, the gap between Yes and No voters’ perceptions indicated that The National was the most strident with a 32-point gap, followed by The Times (18), Scottish Daily Mail (15), Scottish Daily Express and the Scotsman (11).

The Scottish Sun showed a gap of seven, The Herald and Sunday Post on six, Daily Record and Guardian on four and the Sunday Herald, one.

“It’s perhaps quite interesting that the papers with the biggest and smallest gaps in perception by Yes and No voters are the only two which openly support independence, and which come from the same offices,” said Campbell.

“The most remarkable stat here is that fully 28% of respondents identified themselves as Wings Over Scotland readers – with 27% saying they didn’t read it and a further 45% claiming never to have heard of it.

“While we should bear in mind that by definition poll respondents tend to be rather more politically engaged than the population at large and that skews numbers upwards – real turnout in elections, for example, is always considerably lower than polls indicate – anything that’s even remotely in that sort of ballpark is still an absolutely phenomenal reach for an openly partisan one-man website that never gets mentioned in the mainstream media except in occasional smear stories.

“Our combined don’t read it/never heard of it figure of 72% isn’t that far away from those of the newspapers that have massive staffs and resources, are seen every day on news-stands, get plugged endlessly by multiple daily paper-review shows on TV and radio, and have their writers constantly invited on air as pundits.”

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